... At the Popular Library info desk, a librarian explained to an 80-something man about ebooks and Library2Go. Upstairs in Literature & History, a man at a table read "Sniper: A History of U.S. Marksmen." Deeper in the stacks, a young man encamped on the floor was reading quietly to his girlfriend from a book of poetry. "That's a pretty good one," I heard him say, the sound of a smile in his voice. I remembered the man in the mesh baseball cap. We'd come from different places, the lot of us, but we were all here for the same reasons. We were looking for education, art, civic involvement, and yes, the meaningful wasting of time. With gorgeous grace, the library furnished it all. ...Read the rest.
(N.B.: An abridgement of the complete series will appear in this Sunday's (10/21) print edition of The Oregonian.)
